Julianne Moore will play a respected biographer who began forging letters of famous dead celebrities in her first new film since taking home the best actress Oscar, reports Variety.
Moore, who played a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in the award-winning Still Alice, is in negotiations for director Nicole Holofcener’s upcoming biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me?. The film is based on the identically titled 2008 memoir by Lee Israel, a biographer for cosmetics tycoon Estee Lauder and others, which tells the story of the writer’s descent into crime during a period in which she was struggling to pay the rent.
Israel forged an estimated 400 letters from deceased writers and actors in the early 1990s after her career tanked, later stealing genuine copies from library archives (replacing them with forged copies) and selling them on through an ex-con fence she had met in a bar. The writer admitted conspiracy to transport stolen property in June 1993 and served six months under house arrest and five years’ probation following an FBI investigation. Israel, who at times professed pride in her ability to forge believable documents, died in December last year at the age of 75.
Moore is due to reprise her role as rebel leader president Alma Coin in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 in November, with civil-rights drama Freeheld and Rebecca Miller romantic comedy Maggie’s Plan also on her slate for 2015. Holofcener, who will direct from her own screenplay, is best known for critically acclaimed movies such as Enough Said and Friends With Money.
